Best macro lenses for mirrorless – a close-up look

In macro photography, the lens arguably counts for more than the camera – any camera can shoot close-ups, while many lenses can’t. Here, we’ve listed some for all the major mounts for mirrorless cameras – as you’d expect, these form a long list!

If you are a DSLR user, head to our guide for the best-value macro lenses, where we gathered excellent, affordable DSLR macro lenses and some mirrorless optics as well. Macro is quite a technical discipline, don’t let that deter you. The barrier to entry isn’t as high as you might think – and neither is price. Yes, there are some expensive macro lenses out there, but decent, affordable options also exist.

The ability to focus in close and magnify subjects to fill the frame will allow you to render even tiny subjects like insects in full, glorious detail; hence this guide to help you find the right lens to shoot macro, and improve your macro photography. Start by acquiring the best macro lens you can afford.

Below, you’ll see top recommendations for each major lens mount for quick reference. At the bottom of the page are tips on how to choose a good macro lens, with explanations of some key terms.

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Best macro lenses: our quick list

• Best Canon RF macro lens: Canon RF 100mm F2.8L Macro IS USM – Buy now
• Best small Fujifilm X macro lens: Fujifilm XF 30mm F2.8 R LM WR – Buy now
• Best Fujifilm X macro lens: Fujifilm XF 80mm F2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro – Buy now
• Best Laowa APS-C macro lens: Laowa 65mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro – Buy now
• Best Laowa macro lens: Laowa 85mm F2.6 2x Ultra Macro APO – Buy now
• Best telephoto macro lens: Laowa 180mm F4.5 1.5x Ultra-Macro APO – Buy now
• Best Nikon Z macro lens: Nikon Z MC 105mm f/2.8 S VR – Buy now
• Best Micro Four Thirds macro lens: OM System M.Zuiko ED 90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO – Buy now
• Best L-mount macro lens: Panasonic Lumix S 100mm F2.8 Macro – Buy now
• Best budget third-party 2x macro lens: Pergear 100mm F2.8 2x Macro – Buy now
• Best third-party macro lens (Sony E / L-mount): Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro Art – Buy now
• Best Sony macro lens: Sony FE 90mm f2.8 macro G OSS – Buy now

Looking for the best deal on macro lenses? Here are our quick picks of macro lenses for each major mount our ‘Buy now’ buttons set up to automatically take you to the best prices from trusted retailers. You’ll also find a list of other retailers below each lens, so you can find the right deal for you.

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Best Canon RF macro lens: Canon RF 100mm F2.8L Macro IS USM

You could be forgiven for thinking that there’s nothing special about Canon’s pro-spec macro lens for full-frame mirrorless, given that it’s named almost identically to its DSLR predecessor. However, Canon has added some exciting extra features. Firstly, it offers 1.4x magnification, which means you can photograph a subject measuring just 24mm x 16mm. Secondly, an ‘SA Control’ ring allows users to adjust background blur either in front of, or behind the subject. In addition, you get all the hallmarks of Canon’s L range, including robust build quality, rapid autofocus, highly effective optical stabilisation and needless to say, superb optics.

Read our Canon RF 100mm F2.8L Macro IS USM review

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Best small Fujifilm XF macro lens: Fujifilm XF 30mm F2.8 R LM WR

With its focal length equivalent to 45mm, this lens not only offers life-size magnification, but can also double up as an everyday standard lens. You get Fujifilm’s familiar goodies, including an aperture ring and weather-resistant construction, in a design that’s less than 7cm long and weighs under 200g. It’s worth noting, though, that at minimum focus, the front of the lens ends up very close to the subject. If you’d prefer a longer focal length on a similar budget, there’s also the £569 Fujifilm XF 60mm F2.4 R Macro, but it’s an old and relatively unrefined design that only offers 0.5x magnification.

Read our full Fujifilm XF 30mm F2.8 R LM WR Macro review

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Best Fujifilm X macro lens: Fujifilm XF 80mm F2.8 R LM OIS WR Macro

X-system users interested in close-up photography are well served by this fully featured, if pricey, macro lens. Its slightly longer-than-usual 120mm equivalent view allows a good working distance, with life-size reproduction offered at the 25cm minimum focus. The lens employs linear motors for quiet autofocus and has a distance limiter switch to reduce hunting. Optical stabilisation is built in, promising up to five stops of shake reduction, and weather-resistant construction allows you to keep shooting in less-than-perfect conditions. As the icing on the cake, the lens works with Fujifilm’s 1.4x and 2.0x teleconverters.

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Best Laowa APS-C macro lens: Laowa 65mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro

Just at the moment, Laowa is the most innovative lens maker in close-up photography. This 65mm f/2.8 optic offers twice life-size magnification (effectively 3x in full-frame terms) for users of APS-C mirrorless cameras and at a very tempting price. Its robust metal barrel is impressively compact at 100mm long and 335g in weight, and both focusing and aperture controls are fully manual. Crucially, it offers excellent image quality, combining excellent sharpness and beautiful background blur. It’s available in Fujifilm X and Sony E mounts, while Micro Four Thirds users get a scaled-down version, the Laowa 50mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro APO, which costs $399 / £429.

Read our full Laowa 65mm f/2.8 2x Ultra Macro review

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Best Laowa Macro lens: Laowa 85mm F5.6 2x Ultra Macro APO

This unique lens is remarkably small for a full-frame macro, at just 53mm in diameter, 78mm in length, and 291g. It achieves this thanks to its modest maximum aperture and relatively short focal length. Remarkably, though, it’s still capable of twice life-size magnification, meaning it can focus on an area measuring just 18mm x 12mm. Even then, you get a fairly comfortable working distance of 6cm from the front of the lens to the subject. It delivers impressive image quality too, especially when stopped down to f/8 or f/11. It’s available in Canon RF, Nikon Z, Sony E, and L mounts.

Read our Laowa 85mm f/5.6 2x Ultra Macro APO review.

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Best telephoto macro lens: Laowa 180mm F4.5 1.5x Ultra-Macro APO

An absolute bargain for close ups, the Laowa 180mm F4.5 1.5x is an impressive affordable lens delivering larger-than-life-size maximum magnification. You can photograph objects as small as 16x 24mm using a full frame camera. The long 180mm focal length provides a long working distance, ideal if you don’t want to disturb your subject or cast a shadow. It is relatively compact weighing only 522g and 134mm for the E-mount version. Note that there are two distinct variants available depending on mount: Canon RF and Leica L mounts, focusing and aperture operation are manual. However, in Sony E and Nikon Z and Canon EF mount, you get autofocus and electronic aperture setting.

Read our full review of the Laowa 180mm F4.5 1.5x Ultra-Macro APO.

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Best Nikon Z macro lens: Nikon Z MC 105mm f/2.8 S VR

As the more pro-focused of Nikon’s pair of Z-system macro lenses, this packs in pretty much every feature I could wish for. It’s optically stabilised, weather-sealed, and employs an internal-focus design. This means that it focuses quickly and silently, and its length stays constant. Along with a large manual focus ring, there’s a control dial on the barrel for changing exposure settings, whose function can be customised from the camera body. A small display panel on top can show the focus distance and depth of field. It almost goes without saying that the lens is also supremely sharp, even at f/2.8.

Read our full Nikon Z MC 105mm f/2.8 S VR review.

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Best Micro Four Thirds macro lens: OM System M.Zuiko ED 90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO

This remarkable optic can stake a serious claim to being the most versatile macro lens available. In its standard focusing mode, it offers life-size magnification at 0.25m, but when you switch to its special S Macro mode, this increases to twice-life size at a distance of 0.224m. This is equivalent to 4x on full-frame, and in practice that means you can fill the frame with a subject as small as 9.7 x 6.5mm. What’s more, the lens is compatible with 1.4x and 2x teleconverters for even tighter close-ups. Built-in optical stabilisation is rated for 6 stops of shake suppression, and the barrel is weather sealed with an IP53 rating.

Read our OM System M.Zuiko ED 90mm F3.5 Macro IS PRO review

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Best L-mount macro lens: Panasonic Lumix S 100mm F2.8 Macro

At first glance, you probably wouldn’t even think this was a macro lens, given its remarkably small size that matches Panasonic’s range of Lumix S f/1.8 primes. At just 8.2cm long and less than 300g, it’s about half the weight of similar full-frame macro lenses. Yet it’s still capable of life-size magnification, with the only apparent drawback being a slightly short working distance of about 10cm at 1:1. But in return, you get autofocus that’s unusually rapid for a macro lens, and entirely usable for close-up shooting. The lens also benefits from dust-and splashproof construction and should work in temperatures as low as -10°C.

Read our full review of the Panasonic Lumix S 100mm F2.8 Macro.

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Best budget third-party 2x macro lens: Pergear 100mm F2.8 2x Macro

This lens delivers extraordinary value for money. It’s a fraction of the price of the camera makers’ own macro lenses, yet provides 2:1 magnification, with an 11cm working distance from the subject. In part, this is down to its mechanical simplicity: both focusing and aperture operation are fully manual, with the latter employing a 13-blade diaphragm for attractive bokeh. There are no electronics onboard either, for communicating aperture or focal length to the camera. Optically, though, it performs extremely well, delivering beautiful image quality and overall good sharpness. It’s available directly from the firm’s website in Nikon Z, Canon RF, Sony E and L-mounts.

Read our full review of the Pergear 100mm F2.8 Macro.

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Best third-party macro lens: Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro Art

Designed from the ground up for full-frame mirrorless cameras, this lens is available in Sony E and L mounts. In design terms, it employs a barrel that extends dramatically on focusing to its 29.5cm minimum focus position, rather than using an internal focus mechanism like most contemporary macro lenses. According to Sigma, this enables both high sharpness and effective suppression of colour fringing, which is borne out by the superb image quality in testing. But the flipside is relatively slow autofocus. There’s no optical image stabilisation onboard, but most of the cameras the lens will be used on feature in-body stabilisation anyway.

Read our Sigma 105mm F2.8 DG DN Macro Art lens review

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Best Sony macro lens: Sony FE 90mm F2.8 Macro G OSS

While this lens now has stiff competition from more affordable rivals from Tamron and Sigma, it’s still a truly excellent choice for users of Sony E mount cameras. It includes both optical stabilisation and internal focusing, in a dust and moisture resistant design. Other highlights include a focus ring that can be pulled back towards the camera to engage manual mode, a Focus Hold button, and a focus limiter switch on the side of the barrel. But unlike more recent Sony lenses, there’s no aperture ring. Optically it’s absolutely superb, giving super-sharp images with smooth, attractive bokeh.

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How to choose the best macro lenses

If you’re picking the best macro lens for your camera, there are a few key specs and features to consider when making your choice. Here are the main things to focus on.

Magnification factor: To be considered ‘true’ macro, a lens needs to have a magnification factor of at least 1.0x. What does this mean? It means the lens reproduces an object at life-size or greater on the camera’s sensor. And, when you bear in mind that an image sensor is about the size of a postage size, you start to see how macro lenses render tiny things in such crisp detail.

Focal length: Focal length is something of a different matter when we look at macro lenses. Longer focal lengths are better for getting more of a subject in the frame. However, longer lenses tend to have longer minimum focus distances – and in macro, we want to be as physically close as possible. So it’s necessary to strike a balance. A focal length of around 90-105mm is generally considered to be the sweet spot for macro, though, as we’ll see, there are still great lenses on either side of this range.

Optical performance: This is obviously important with any lens. With macro lenses, however, you want to pay particular attention to how the lens performs at narrow apertures, as you’ll often need to be using these to get a decent amount of depth of field.

Manual focus ring: Manual focusing is generally the name of the game in extreme close-ups. This means you’ll ideally want a lens with a smoothly rotating manual focusing ring.

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Recent updates

• 2026 February: we decided to remove DSLR lenses from this list and create a dedicated mirrorless only selection. We also removed various lenses that are no longer available new. Prices and availability were checked and updated for every lens. Added the Laowa 180mm f/4.5 1.5x Ultra-Macro APO as it truly impressed our review team with its sharp optics and larger-than life magnification that also comes at an extremely affordable price.

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Text by Joshua Waller with contributions from Aliz Kovacs-Zoldi

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Related reading:

• Top tips for macro photography
• How to photograph flowers
• Best smartphones for macro photography – capture close-up detail

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